Stone Age Orcadians

Scratch Orkney and she bleeds history Neolithic settlers quit the face of the earth Entered their world of stone, the portal of death Their years, a series of obstacles, Weather, wind, and rain And the howling darks of Winter Life snapped them off like sticks To kindle stories In the Tomb of the Otters, All ages and genders, babies, mothers, fathers With otters’ bones commingled In the Tomb of the Eagles, High on the Isbister cliff edge, Buried with lords of the air At Maeshowe, great Neolithic chamber At the winter solstice The setting sun enters the inner passage Lighting the back wall like a trapped god Maeshowe, stripped and robbed by the Vikings Who carved a dragon, a serpent, a walrus And runic graffiti: 'Thorfinn wrote these runes'. 'These runes were carved by the man Most skilled in runes on the Western Ocean With the axe that killed Gaukr Trandkill's son In the South of Iceland' 'Haakon singlehanded Bore treasures from this howe'. Scratch Orkney and she bleeds history The Ness of Brodgar ripped up all the history books Stone Age slate roofs, painted walls and pottery Now, the bones of the dead Are tapped to release their secrets Staved in skulls hint at truncated lives At the Ring o' Brodgar, rearing from the heath Lightning has felled two stones A moment’s work, far quicker than their rising Scratch Orkney and she bleeds history Once a holed monolith stood in a field North of the Standing Stones o' Stenness. The Odin Stone. It stood for millennia, Felled by a 'ferrylouper' patching up a byre Now it’s low as the pebbles, Looks up to the wind-chilled sunshine, Orcadian Ozymandios Isolation is the birthright of the idol The Stane o' Quoybune at Birsay, the Yetnasteen in Rousay, Are petrified giants. Every New Year’s day Touched by the Gods, they walk. The Stane o' Quoybune visits the Boardhouse Loch, Dips its head in the water, drinks its fill. Only those tired of life impede its progress To wait for a year, to travel slowly over the startled land, Think of it, after a twelve months tethered to moor To roam, with the boon of movement Like an ancient Juggernaut grooved and omnipotent Slow, and unhindered, crushing all in its way Scratch Orkney and she bleeds history Wind and high tides stripped the grass from a mound, Hidden for 40 centuries by sand Protectively cocooned on the Bay o' Skaill, In the West Mainland parish of Sandwick, The village of Skara Brae Eight houses, linked by passageways Each house the same - a large square room, A central fireplace, a bed on either side A shelved dresser opposite the doorway. Who’d want to wear dead mens’ clothes? Who’d want a life, brutish and short and hard? Which one of us would be tied To the shadowy peg of Neolithic terrors? We are the grave tourists Voyeurs nosey-parkering into the past Staring into the rough-hewn walls and chambers Like the Vikings at Maeshowe, None leave empty-handed, trinket laden